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Wednesday, December 9, 2009

So I feel the need to inform you all that as I'm writing this I'm sitting at my kitchen table in a sweatshirt, pj pants and a blanket. Why am I not at work you ask? Oh, ya know because we got 18 inches of snow last night! We were under a blizzard watch and the governor called a state of emergency for the entire state of Wisconsin. Holy guacamole you should see the snow! I work for a company that is contracted with the State of Wisconsin so the only way we get snow days is if the state closes down. Well, in 30 years they've only closed once and today makes it twice. Maybe that'll give you a better idea of how crazy it is out there!

My mom, my brother and I went out earlier to clear out the end of our driveway from what the snowplow lovingly pushed there. It took us 1hr 30min and boy oh boy was it quite the workout.

We also went outside last night in our tshirts, pants and socks as it was beginning to snow and made snow angels. We do it every year in honor of our "snow angels": my mom's friend Dave that died from cancer about 4 years ago in January and my mom's cousin Terry that also died from cancer about 3 years ago in November. It's so much fun to just run out there, make a snow angel and then run inside quick before we catch pneumonia haha. It's a great tradition we started to make sure that we remember them always and to let them know that they're always in our hearts. RIP DH, TG we miss you both!!

A picture from last year that we did.

So back track to Saturday (I know it was quite awhile ago!!) my step-mom, my dad, my brother and I went out to dinner at Qdoba and then to see "The Blind Side". I decided that I wanted to look nice so I tried on a dress shirt that my grandma got me last year for my birthday that I could only (barely) wear once because I was too big for it. And guess what? It fit! Not only did it fit but it fit really well! It felt so amazing :-)

And now if you rewind a little, not as far back, to Monday, I went shopping for Christmas with my Grandma. It's a tradition every year for her to take us shopping for Christmas since she wants to know that we will like what she gets us. We almost always go to Kohl's to get some clothes. I picked out two tops that are absolutely gorgeous. Here are pictures from the Kohl's website of them:

I decided that I wanted to buy the shirts a little on the small side so that by the time January/February comes around they will fit perfectly. Well, I decided to grab mediums in both and try them on just to make sure that I liked how they would look once I could fit into them. I was very suprised that they were both only "slightly" too small. Me fit into a medium shirt? Serious? How crazy is that?! I'm so excited to be able to slip these on and wear them out knowing that I, formerly weighing in at 270 pounds am wearing a medium shirt. :-) My sweet Grandma, bless her heart, asked me probably 3 or 4 times if I was sure that a medium would fit. I just smiled and nodded knowing that she must think I'm absolutely nuts.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Happy happy Friday!! Gosh I am sooo happy to finally see Friday, especially since we got our first official snowfall yesterday. It makes me want to go curl up on the couch and laze around but I am here at work instead. Poo.

I am the type of person that HATES snow, with a passion. Not because of the actual snow per se, more because of how it affects roads and driving. I'm a big driver. I'm always driving and quite frankly I love driving. My gym is 20 minutes away, my boyfriend is an hour away the mall is 15 minutes away etc etc. (luckily work is only 5 minutes away!) Hopefully this winter won't be as horrible as last winter but I guess we'll see. Since I live in Wisconsin and I'm stuck here for at least another year (then hopefully California!) I decided that maybe this year should be the year I try to kinda sorta enjoy the snow. Crazy I know! That is why I'm going to try to get into snowshoeing. I figure that maybe if I can get in some good exercise outside during the winter it'll be more enjoyable to have snow around. We shall see, we shall see.

Last night I made a pizza! Now don't freak out, this was a healthy pizza! Yes, there is such a thing :-) Let me walk you through the wonderful steps.

I used a Flatout Flatbread Light Italian Herb crust. These things are sooo good, if you haven't tried them please do you will not be disappointed!

Here are my toppings. A nice Hunt's all natural pizza sauce with no salt added which is great because I believe that one serving of the sauce only about 20mg of sodium. Score! Some Pennsylvania Dutchman canned mushrooms. Also with low sodium! And some Black Pearls canned black olives. Once again, low sodium. I'm a big low sodium person. If I can get the same item with half or more less sodium, why not? I don't need all that extra salt especially since I still have slightly elevated blood pressure.

Here I started to add the sauce. I was making one for my mom too and decided to have a little fun.

Here are the pizzas all cooked up! The "meat" on there is a cut up vegan Boca patty. I used one patty for both of our pizzas and it added great flavor. I cooked these on a cookie sheet for about 10 minutes at 325*.

If I calculated correctly, this whole pizza came out to about 350 calories. Sweet! Aaand it was delicious! Like honestly I don't have to eat regular pizza again now that I've done this. I was very happy that I made the last minute decision to do that last night. This will definitely be a regular on the menu!

I'm going to try to push myself to do the Pilates classes tomorrow morning and Sunday morning at the gym. I'm still a little nervous but I just need to suck it up and do it and everything will be a-ok.

I hope you all have a fun and safe weekend! And stay warm to everyone running the 5k tomorrow!!

Thursday, December 3, 2009

...that I haven't worked out for a week because I lost 4.6 pounds this week. The scale read 229.2 pounds. That's great, that’s wonderful, I met my goal for Christmas (I'll be re-doing that goal shortly) and I have officially lost 40 pounds in 4 months but I have mixed feelings about it. Call me crazy but I do. I am the type of person that over thinks EVERYTHING. So I will share my thought process with you. Ready?

Here goes nothing, hope I don't gain too much.

Wait that says 229.2. The scale is obviously broken, let's try that again.

Nope still says 229.2. Hmm.

Well now I have to redo my Christmas goal.

Woo hoo!

Wait, I didn't do anything this past week.

Can I really lose 4.6 pounds by doing nothing?

Maybe my body just needed to be caught off guard.

Caught off guard? You're not an athlete, you work out 4 times a week, it wouldn't shake it up that much. Would it?

I hope that was all fat and not muscle.

Do I even have 4.6 pounds of muscle on my body?

I should probably start reading more.

There is a glimpse into the wonderful head of mine. Fun isn't it? That was all within about a minute of seeing that number. I'm obviously new to this whole weight loss thing so some of you more experienced peeps can chime in if you want. Is it possible that by only working out twice in two weeks that I lost some muscle? Is it possible that I lost 4.6 pounds of muscle or do you think some of that was fat? Could it be that my body is just responding well to the food I'm eating and the fact that even though I didn't work out much I did work out? I have at least 70 more pounds to lose so I know that maybe it's just fat that was ready to come off? Ahh, I hate when I do this to myself haha.

Anyways any advice would be greatly appreciated :-)

And I hope you all are well on your way to healthy happy lifestyles.

P.S - Does anyone know anything about snowshoeing? I would love to try it and know nearly nothing about it.

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Mine was great. My family traveled about 1hr 45 minutes south of here to Elgin, IL for my mom's side of the family's celebration. I ate pretty darn well. I had a little bit of turkey, a lot of salad and fruit, a little bit of this amazing corn casserole thingy and a small piece of pumpkin pie. When we got home I snacked on a cookie and 2 pieces of this taco roll up thingy my mom makes. I made sure to fill up on lots of water (about 3L) and overall I think I did pretty darn good.

Food has always been the easy part for me. If I try hard enough I can easily eat healthy, eat less and stay away from junk. It's the exercise that kicks my butt and boy oh boy has it been whopping me lately.

The last time I worked out was exactly a week ago today. And I'm angry. Absolutely infuriated with myself. I had the chance to go Friday night, Saturday night, Sunday night and last night but did I? No, I didn't. Why didn't I go? I don't know, throw out an excuse I'm sure I've used it. The worst part is that I know better than that. I know that I will not get results even close to what I want by exercising once a week or even twice or three times a week. My body needs exercise 4-6 times a week for me to make any progress.

Maybe I will gain this week. Maybe I should gain. Maybe it would do me some good. Snap me back into reality. Maybe it's about time I did what I need to do. Exercise is not an option, so why do I act like it is?

I know we all struggle and that I will have many more struggles before I've even made a dent in my journey. I guess I need to just get up, brush myself off and move forward. That's the only way I can go, right?